Read Ebook: Lost in the Air by Snell Roy J Roy Judson

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Ebook has 1150 lines and 45643 words, and 23 pages

"He's here! She's--it's here!"

Bruce burst into the office all excitement and half out of breath.

"Who's he, she, it?" grinned Barney, slipping his pen behind his ear.

"The Major and the airplane! And the plane's a hummer!"

It was Barney's turn to get excited now. He jumped from his stool so suddenly that his pen went clattering.

"Let's have a look at her." He grabbed his cap and dashed out, Bruce at his heels.

Some Greek freight handlers were unloading the car when they reached the track. The work was being done under the direction of a rather tall man, erect and dignified. He, the boys felt sure, was the Major. His face bore some peculiar scars, not deep but wide, and as he walked he limped slightly.

"Might be he's lost some toes," muttered Barney. "Had a cousin who limped that way."

"The machine's a Handley-Page bombing plane, made over for some purpose or other," said Bruce, with a keen eye for every detail. "That's the plane that would have bombed Berlin if the war had lasted long enough. They're carrying mail from Paris to Rome in 'em now. Those machines carried four engines and developed a thousand horse-power. This one is a lighter model and carries two engines. One's a Rolls-Royce and one a Liberty motor. The fellow that planned the Major's trip for him has selected his equipment well. They don't make them any better."

"Just look at the sweep of the planes," exclaimed Barney. "They were made for high altitude work--up where the air's thin. No one would be coming up here for a high altitude test, would he?"

"Surely not; there's no particular advantage at this point for that."

The boys watched the unloading with eager and experienced eyes. As Barney put it, "Makes me feel like some shipwrecked gob on a desert island when he sees a launch coming ashore."

"Yes," grinned Bruce, "and soon you'll be feeling like your gob would when the launch came about and put out to sea again. No chance for you on that boat, Barney."

"Guess you're right," groaned Barney. "Little enough we'll have to do with that bird."

As he spoke several of the men recklessly jerked a plane to free it from its wrappings. The Major, his back to them, was superintending the unloading of the Liberty motor.

"Hey, you! Go easy there!" Barney sprang forward impulsively and showed the workmen how to handle the plane. When the job was done he stepped back with an apologetic air. The Major had turned and was watching him.

"You seem to understand such matters," he smiled.

"I've worked with them a bit," said Barney.

"Would you mind letting me know where you are located?" asked the Major. "My aviator and mechanic have disappointed me so far. You might be of some assistance to me."

"We're over at the bookkeeping shack--the office of the construction company," said Barney, red with embarrassment. "He--that is, my bunkie here, knows more about those boats than I do. Say, if we can be any help to you, we'll jump at the chance. Won't we, Bruce?"

"Surest thing," grinned Bruce, as they turned regretfully toward the dull office and duller work.

"Say, you don't suppose," exclaimed Barney that night at supper--"you remember those awful wide planes of the Major's? You don't suppose he's starting for--" Barney hesitated.

"You don't mean?--" Bruce hesitated in turn.

"Sure! The Pole; you don't suppose he'd try it?"

"Of course not," exclaimed Bruce, the conservative. "Who ever thought of going to the Pole in a plane through Canada?"

"Bartlett's got a plan of going to the Pole in a plane."

"But he's going from Greenland," said Bruce. "That's different."

"Why"

"Steamboat. Farthest point of land north and everything."

"That's just it," exclaimed Barney disgustedly. "Steamboat and everything. You're not a real explorer unless some society backs you up with somebody's money to the tune of fifty thousand or so; till you've got together a group of scholars and seamen for the voyage. Then the proper thing to do is to get caught in the ice, you are all but lost. But--the ice clears at the crucial moment, you push on and on for two years; you live on seal meat and whale blubber. Half your seamen get scurvy and die; your dogs go mad; your Eskimos prove treacherous, you shoot one or more. You take long sled journeys, you freeze, you starve, you erect cairns at your farthest point north, or west, or whatever it is. Then, if you're lucky, you lose your ship in an ice-jam and walk home, ragged and emaciated. A man that does it that way gets publicity; writes a book, gets to be somebody.

"You see," he went on, "we've sort of got in the way of thinking that it takes a big expedition to do exploring. But, after all, what good does a big expedition do? Peary didn't need one. He landed at the Pole with two Eskimos and a negro. Well, now it ought to be easy as nothing for two or three men in a plane, like that one of the Major's, to go to the Pole from here. There's a fort and trading post on Great Bear Lake with, maybe, a power-boat and gasoline. Then, if there happened to be a whaler, or something, to give you a second lift, why there you are!"

"Sounds pretty good," admitted Bruce. "But nobody would ever attempt it."

"Of course not," retorted Barney. "It's too simple."

The two following days the boys found themselves taking morning and evening walks down the track to the airplane, which still lay piled in sections by the track. They were surprised to see that no effort was being made to assemble it. The reason for the delay was made clear to them by an unexpected encounter on the evening of the second day.

Finding the Major pacing up and down before the machine, his slight limp aggravated by his very evident irritation, they were about to pass as if they didn't know there was a plane within a hundred miles, when they were halted by the upraised hand of the Major.

Immediately both boys clicked heels and saluted. Then they felt foolish for saluting in "civies."

"I see you are military all right," smiled the Major. "But how much do you really know about airplanes?"

"Oh," said Barney, with exaggerated indifference, "Bruce, here, knows a little and I know a little, too. Between us we might be able to assemble your machine, if that's what you want." In spite of his heroic attempts at self-control, his voice betrayed his eagerness. Truth was, his fingers itched for pliers and wrenches.

"That's part of what I want, but not all," the Major said briskly. "I am not an aviator myself, and my man has failed me at the last moment; had a trifling smash which resulted in a dislocated thigh. Out of service for the season. I need an aviator and a good one. He says there's only one other not attached to military units that he could recommend--a Canadian. But the plague of it is, the man can't be located."

"Might I ask the nature of your proposed trip?" asked Bruce--then bit his lip a second too late.

"You might not" The Major snapped out the words. Then in a kindlier tone, "My secret is not entirely my own. I can say, however, that it is not an exceedingly long trip, nor a dangerous one, as aviation goes, but it is an important one, and besides, if it comes out well, and I believe it will, I might wish to go on a more hazardous journey. In that case, of course, you can see I should wish a veteran pilot at the wheel and one who will take a chance."

He turned to Bruce. "You are a Canadian, are you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then perhaps you can tell me of the whereabouts of this young Canadian aviator. His name is--" the Major stopped to think. "His name is--ah! I have it! It's Manning--Bruce Manning."

Bruce's jaw dropped in astonishment. He was too surprised to speak. It was Barney who, almost shouting in his excitement, said:

"He's Bruce Manning, Major."

"What?" The Major stood back and looked at Bruce. "You? Oh come; you are hardly more than a boy!"

"Yes," said Barney, "he's hardly more than a boy, but some of the best flyers the Allies had were hardly more than boys. They were boys when they went into it over there, but the boys who went up after the Germans two or three times came down men, Major. Don't forget that."

"You're right--and I beg your pardon," said the Major, bowing to them. "I spoke thoughtlessly. So then I have the good fortune to be speaking to the very man I seek?" he went on, turning to Bruce. "Now I suppose the remaining questions are: Will you be at liberty to take up aviation again and--do you want to?"

"That," said Bruce, struggling to keep his voice steady, "will depend upon at least one thing: If you will answer one question now, we will promise you a definite answer to-morrow morning at seven o'clock."

"The question?"

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